Freed Chile miner Mario Sepulveda reveals darkest days

Mario Sepulveda, the miner who became a star of the remarkable Chilean rescue,
has spoken of the despair felt during the 69-day ordeal.

Mario Sepulveda said all the miners have taken an oath of silence not to reveal certain details of what occurred down the minePhoto: REUTERS

9:00AM BST 17 Oct 2010

He has described how thoughts of providing for his children's education spurred him on during the darkest moments in the San Jose mine.

He told the Mail on Sunday how he and his 32 trapped colleagues had "all but given up" during the first weeks underground, when they were completely without contact with the outside world and feared rescuers had given up.

"We were swallowed into the bowels of hell but we have been reborn and now I feel it is my duty to tell what went on and the lessons to be learned," he told the newspaper.

"We heard nothing for 15 days and then for two days we heard drilling in the distance but it stopped.

Related Articles

"Then the drilling started again and the roof of the tunnel began showering rocks and the drill came through. We started dancing around in pure joy."

Mr Sepulveda, who marked his 40th birthday while trapped half a mile below ground, said: "The only thought that kept going through my head was that I didn't want to die before my children had an education. It sounds like a crazy thought but that is so important to me."

All 33 trapped miners, practicing a one-man, one-vote democracy, worked together to maintain the mine, look for escape routes and keep up morale, he said.

"We knew that if society broke down we would all be doomed," said the father of Scarlette, 18, and Francisco, 13.

"Each day a different person took a bad turn. Every time that happened, we worked as a team to try to keep the morale up."

He and some of the older miners helped to support the younger men, he said, but all have taken an oath of silence not to reveal certain details of what occurred down the mine, particularly during the early weeks of desperation.

Mr Sepulveda, who was the second man to be winched to freedom in the Phoenix capsule, denied rumours that this oath was taken because of sexual intimacy between the men during their ordeal, and also said he had not contemplated the prospect of cannibalism.

"I just thought about dying. I thought about my wife, my kids."

Mr Sepulveda, who cheekily gave Sebastian Pinera, the Chilean president, some rocks from the mine as a gift, took the role of joker among the 33 trapped miners to keep spirits up.

When the pressure became too much, he would walk away from the others and weep alone in another tunnel, he said, because the sight of the "comedian" breaking down would have had a devastating impact on everyone else.

With predictions that the 33 miners, already national heroes, will now become rich celebrities, Mr Sepulveda said: "I am not a superstar, I am a miner. I will always be a miner."